I don’t understand what you mean with the content disappearing when you mount the virtiofs on the guest - isn’t the mount empty when bound, untill the guest populates it?

Can you share what sync client+guest os you are using? if the client does “advanced” features like files on demand, then it might clash with virtiofs - this is where the details of which client/OS could be relevant, does it require local storage or support remote?

If guest os is windows, samba share it to the host. if guest os is linux, nfs will probably do. In both cases I would host the share on the client, unless the client specifically supports remote storage.

podman/docker seems to be the proper tool for you here, but a VM with the samba/nfs approach could be less hassle and less complicated, but somewhat bloaty. containers require some more tailoring but in theory is the right way to go.

Keep in mind that a screwup could be interpreted by the sync client as mass-deletes, so backups are important (as a rule of thumb, it always is, but especially for cloud hosted storage)

Agreed! I think a part of the “problem” is that with Nix, there’s now at least 3 sides: application specific knowledge, system knowledge, and you have to use the nix language, architecture and tools to interface with it. so for a seasoned linux user, there’s maybe just a new programming language, but if you’re new to Linux, it’s quickly gonna overwhelm you. which in a way is a bit ironic because I’d argue that it’s easier to manage a NixOS system, and getting help is so much easier when your problems can be replicated by just aharing your config.

that is one way to do it, and it’s a very common one - it’s robust and simple. So I can’t correct you, but thought I would add to it. In NixOS, they’ve improved it by making sure all your apps are symlinked, and when updating, these symlinks are updated. That way you can start using your newly updated system straight away, without a reboot. When rebooting, you are prompted to which generation you want to boot into, (defaulting to “latest” after a few seconds of no input) making rollbacks a breeze.

they do in a way move the character on their own though, through emulating extra input events on behalf of the user.

without, these inputs are sent, one per human action: KEYDOWN=A, KEYDOWN=D with the same two keypresses: KEYDOWN=A, KEYDOWN=D+KEYUP=A

The problem is that these create input events on behalf of the user. forexample: When pressing A while still having D pressed, the keyboard sends a KEY_UP=D event even as the user is still pressing D.

As for your comparisom, lowering latency is something different, if anything it’s attempting to make the users actions registered more accurately.

Do note that without this kind of processing, the games already knows that D is still pressed while A is presses, and they decide how to act on it. Games handle this differently, a common one being both keys as “stand still”.

So we’re:

1. creating new input eventson behalf of the user
2. tricking the game to to avoid a state the devs have intended
3. resulting in a huge advantage for the player.

In my opinion this should be implemeted on a OS level for all to use, but I don’t struggle one bit to see how this is disruptive and a no-go in competitive games.